Cody, a 160-pound wolf-malamute cross breed, persisted in waking up Pat Malone when an adjacent apartment in his complex caught fire. "If it weren’t for the dog, he probably would have died right there," Fire Inspector Zane Emerson said Thursday. "There might have been some other deaths as well. We got to the fire before it got to the attic. If it had gotten to the attic, we might have had a super  problem."

Malone said he was sleeping on the couch when Cody began batting his face with his paws early Christmas morning. "He kept slapping my face and I kept pushing him away," Malone said. Finally Malone got up and smelled smoke. When he opened the door to his apartment, he saw flames shooting from the two doors of the adjoining apartment. Malone called the fire department, then went from door to door waking tenants and getting them out of their apartments. But the 33-year-old construction worker gives most of the credit to his dog.

"I think he's saved a lot of people's lives," he said. Fire inspectors say Cody definitely repaid Malone's
kindness from a year ago. Malone took Cody from a previous tenant who planned to take him to the pound because she couldn't find a home for him.